Guinea

2006

Guinea’s National Communications Council (known by its French acronym CNC) suspended the private weekly, which is based in the capital Conakry, for two months over an editorial critical of the government, according to local journalists and the Media Foundation for West Africa.

Guinea’s National Communications Council (known as the CNC) suspended La Croisade, a private publication published in the capital, Conakry, for two months starting on July 19. According to local journalists and the Media Foundation for West Africa, the suspension stemmed from an article linking the theft of two suitcases belonging to President Lansana Conté and the death of the president’s driver from an apparent heart attack.

Your Excellency,
The Committee to Protect Journalists urges you as chairman of the African Union to discuss with your fellow heads of state and government at your summit in the Gambian capital, Banjul, from July 1, the need to defend press freedom on the continent.

New York, May 4, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the recent suspension of the twice-monthly private newspaper L’Enquêteur by Guinea’s National Communications Council after it published an article critical of President Lansana Conté’s government. Council Chairman Boubacar Yacine Diallo confirmed to CPJ via e-mail that the paper was suspended for two months on April 27 for publishing allegedly “tendentious and unfounded information” that could endanger national unity and security.

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New York, February 27, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is troubled by the National Communications Council's decision last Wednesday to suspend the private bimonthly Les Echos for two months and ban two of the newspaper's journalists from working during that time.

The decision by the government-controlled council cited "the publication of false news and an attack on the honor and dignity" of a government minister, Kiridi Bangoura. Bangoura brought a complaint against the newspaper after it published an article in the February 20 edition accusing him of "becoming rich off the back of Guineans."